Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a uniquely thrilling horror experience. Armed with only a camera and your wits, the tension is palpable and oozes out of every nook and cranny of Mt. Hikami and the surrounding areas. The camera serves to be as trusty of a weapon as a gun and adds a distinct tension to the action that few games could replicate. The atmosphere, level design, and story all work in tandem to create a surprisingly tense and beautiful experience, despite relying a bit too much on backtracking and having a rather thin story.

Phoenix Point: Behemoth Edition offers the same wealth of content available on the PC, and the controller support is good enough for those willing to overlook some fiddly inventory and menu management. However, the technical performance is far beneath what it should be, so your best bet is to wait for the promised patches to arrive, or simply enjoy a smoother ride on PC if you can.

Pumpkin Jack is a retro-inspired platformer that features a great sense of humor, creative boss fights, a variety of levels, a few interesting puzzles, and some inspired on-rails sections. While the combat can border on frustrating and the game can be completed in 4 or 5 hours, there is still a lot to love – especially if you are a fan of PS2 era platformers.

While The Good Life still has some annoyances carried over from Deadly Premonition, it’s still a great time with some wacky characters. The transformations and photography are a lot of fun to mess around with, and the life simulation aspects compliment the more relaxed pace nicely.

Gloomhaven’s jump from board game to PC keeps the game as strategic and satisfying as it ever was, all while streamlining the experience and opening it up to new avenues of play. The genuine effort of the creators shows through to a game that is worthy for fans and newcomers alike to struggle against the hordes of doom that threaten your very cards.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is the biggest surprise of the year, and joins Marvel’s Spider-Man as one of the best Marvel video games in the last decade. The Guardians themselves steal the show, depicted perfectly, with a movie/comic-worthy story that will leave you laughing and crying. The combat is a lot of fun with plenty of strategies to use, even if it can get a little repetitive, and the setting and locations blow you away in scale and how incredibly detailed and beautiful they are. This Guardians team absolutely stands on its own, and just like the movie I’m hooked on a feeling.

Age of Empires helped define an entire genre, and under the steady hand of RTS masters Relic Entertainment, it may once again wear that crown -- Age of Empires IV is that good.

Toy Soldiers HD allows players to live out the scenarios they once created as a child playing with toys on a rainy Saturday afternoon, while also providing a complex, stressful, and beautifully crafted strategic experience. I found myself eager to see what was next, to retry levels with better defenses after learning what to expect, and to hop into a multiplayer match (even if I couldn’t at press time). I may not have played the original, so I can’t compare the remaster to it, but if the original was half as good as the remaster then I am sorry that I missed out on this series for so many years.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes might not be very frightening, but it absolutely nails a tense atmosphere where every choice really does matter. With gorgeous visuals and a satisfying, well paced story, Supermassive has finally found their footing.

Unsighted is this year’s best Metroidvania/Zelda-like game by a long shot. It’s creative, gripping, and accessible with a ton of stuff to do and see. There are a few small issues, like some awkward writing or too much menuing, but those are well worth it for such a fun, polished experience.

Life is Strange: True Colors Wavelengths provides a great narrative experience that series fans will especially appreciate focused solely on one of the series’ best characters.

Discovery Tour: Viking Age uses fictional narratives to interest the player in learning about real world cultures and artifacts to great effect. While seeing more perspectives would have given a rounder view, there’s a ton of interesting things to learn at your own pace and however deep you want to go.

Wrath of the Righteous is a deep, engaging, faithful recreation of the tabletop campaign with only minor flaws. Its Crusade system is imperfect and the learning curve is more of a mountain, but the reward for getting through both is a long experience with incredible replay value. I know I will be replaying a few times soon, and I invite you to do the same.

Lemnis Gate gets a lot right when all the stars align and you're able to get into the game without a hitch. However, at least on PS5, the game has quite a few hiccups that prevent the player from ever reaching the fun twist on your run of the mill shooter.

A game with a boat load of Nostalgia and good bones. A fighter that’s fun with friends, challenging with AI, and competitive online. With time and love, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl could be a top tier fighter in the near future.

While hilarious and fun for a couple of hours, Fisti-Fluffs players will be hard-pressed to find many reasons to come back after a night or two of entertainment. Still, the hilarious win animations, variety of modes, customization options, and killer metal soundtrack make for a good night in. While there are a few issues with slowdown and bots freezing, none of these ruins the experience enough to worry about in the long run.

Sadly The Jackbox Party Pack 8 has more duds than hits this time around. Job Job and Weapons Drawn can be a lot of fun, while Pole Mine, The Wheel of Enormous Proportions, and Drawful Animate range from bad to decent.

A quirky, bite-sized roguelike all about slick plays you make and highscores you break. It does a lot with relatively little, but you’ll quickly find its limits.

Despite its noticeable faults, FIFA 22 is still a decent installment in the series. It offers players fun gameplay and an excellent visual experience to football lovers.

You'll find a lot of fun in Back 4 Blood. Turtle Rock Studios managed to take something that was old and give it enough of a touch-up to make sure we recognized it but played with it differently. It's fun to hop on with your friends and blast away the zombies and compete to potentially take out the Cleaners, but you have to get past the first half of the game to get to the best parts. It doesn't help that the story gives you nothing to cling to, but once you get past those parts, the tension and excitement kick in. But sadly, playing solo hardly gives you anything like what you get playing online and with friends.

Metroid Dread is yet another fantastic return to form for Samus. ZDR is an absolute blast to explore with secrets everywhere and satisfying bosses to fight. However, the game is held back by some strange design decisions, areas that blend together, and controls that are far too complicated.

Hot Wheels Unleashed is a competent enough racer, but lacks anything to make it unique compared to previous games. It’s generally very bland, relies on loot boxes, and the AI rubber bands constantly.

Whether you want to call it a rogue-like or an RPG, Skeletal Avenger is held up by top-tier combat that is challenging but never feels unfair. Unfortunately, runs in the core game don’t last long enough for builds to really ‘take off’, and bland bosses and environments hold the game back from reaching the highs of similar games in the genre.

The Forgotten City is an incredible game with meticulously crafted puzzles and an engrossing time loop story. While it has some quirks, this cloud version is a fantastic way to play the game thanks to the Switch’s portability.

Rogue Lords is a fine game with some novel systems for lovers of roguelites to play around with, but it will not grab your attention long enough to keep you coming back. Given its premise and stellar art design, that’s a shame.

Everything you wanted from an Outer Wilds DLC in a package you never thought to expect. Echoes of the Eye puts its own twists on the base game’s formula without a single misstep.

Tinytopia is a casual city builder that hits all the fun notes without asking too much of the architect. About a dozen hours of pure fun, only a few bugs, and an easily-gamed happiness meter hold it back. It’s good city-building comfort food.

This title is not a AAA space sim, but it is enough to occupy you in short sprints of intense Space dogfighting action. The maneuverability and ability to hop into the next big battle or next mission in bite size easy to pick up and put down ability make this a great addition for those who do like space shooters but don't want to commit a massive amount of focus or attention to play. Just pick it up and save the galaxy!